Man in the Iron Mask
by fnordprefect
Summary: Also resurrected from an ancient hard drive. We know from "Fragments" that Janto's simmering tension was present from Day 1. I presume that they were physical together, albeit on the DL, preceding the events of "Cyberwoman". Ianto's so deeply depressed and in denial that he still thinks everything's fine. How low can he go, and what will he find at rock bottom?
1. Chapter 1

Never much went for sport. Nothing involving hand-eye coordination, anyway. I was always better at games requiring agility. Or endurance.

So even once upon a time, before, I wouldn't have been interested in joining their game. Even if they'd invited me.

I've occasionally, after, felt a strange sensation-almost as if I were a person, with a life. It's an illusion, of course, but an illusion that can sustain over time. Over hours, even. Distraction, that's the key. Distraction of a highly physical nature. To feel alive. I can float for an afternoon in a manic haze of witty banter and skillful caffeination. Run all evening through the dark, chasing boogeymen out of the rift, hunting weevils, wearing out my limbs and lungs past exhaustion and out the other side, to peace.

And then I come home, to her.

The worst part is how very *there* she is, when she is. On a good night, we can have a real conversation. Pretend like nothing's changed.

Yes, she is unconscious more often than not.

Yes, her speech patterns are different. Of course I would notice.

The other night she said something about "after the upgrade is complete".

I know she means, after I can save enough to hire Dr. Tanizaki. So he can bring her the rest of the way back.

She is the victim of an unimaginable crime. Her body, taken and destroyed so casually, not by someone who wished her harm, but by someone who saw her as one more expendable tool in a ghastly battle. To whom she didn't even matter. No wonder she's confused.

She doesn't need me to poke at her. Correct her. Ask her stupid questions. She needs two things from me right now: to keep her tied into the power grid to maintain her physical functions. And to keep her anchored. In real life.

Whether she's conscious or not, I end our nights together with a gentle, unintrusive kiss. (She still tastes the same.) And then, dawn cracking sixteen stories above, I sneak upstairs. The most complicated part is trying to avoid Him. Of course, he's trying to avoid the rest of us, which helps.

He lives in the office. And not in the way that you'd joke about your workaholic boss living in the office. He actually lives there. And he wants it kept secret. And I know, not just because I'm the assistant and it's my job to know everything, but because I know.

He and I, both there ahead of everyone else every morning. Both there after everyone else has left at night. No questions between us. No lies.


	2. Chapter 2

I hand-delivered him a pterodactyl, and yet he wouldn't hire me until he felt my erection pressed against his thigh. Try explaining that it's just the adrenalin. Better to say nothing at all. Possibly the most embarassing moment of my life. Though not, as the kids say, the most traumatic. (That would be Canary Wharf, if you ask, which no one ever does.)

"I like the suit," he said, and I was in. Make the coffee, and whatever else needs doing. All business.

He's all business, too, when they others are around. But from time to time, after they've all gone, he wanders in just as I'm throwing the last bin liner in the compacter (to be buried deep under the foundations; Torchwood trash isn't set on the kerb once a week...). He wanders in, and leans his massiveness against the doorjamb. Sometimes he's still wearing his coat.

This gets back to what I was saying earlier, about physical distractions.

I'm glad he doesn't use his lines on me, because they're corny and ridiculous. I have watched him shot down by Suzie and gently rebuffed by sweet Toshiko. If he spoke to me as he speaks to them I think I'd have to refuse out of principle. As it is, he simply watches me clean. And he says something pithy, like "You finished?" As it is, I never refuse.

He is overwhelming. The shape of him there under his greatcoat. The line of his jaw as he tilts his head to the angle that a hundred years' practice has led him to think shows off his eyes to best advantage. His smell-in daylight I'll tell you (or him) that it's obnoxious, flaunting pheremones like that, but I truly understand the intention. And it works.

We never kiss. We barely speak—strictly the basics, "like this" or "harder" or "yes". But his hands are eloquent. His hands speak confidence. Power. When he puts those hands on me, I can feel that power pulsing into me. And when we are alone, words or no, he is so.. attentive. It's… it's very distracting. Sometimes, for whole minutes at a time, I feel not just alive, but… cared for. That I matter.

Of course, we both know it's not serious. That's why no kissing. That's why he does such a good job when the others are here, keeping things under wraps. Like it never happened.

Lisa will understand, when I tell her. When she's better.


	3. Chapter 3

I.

It's all my fault, it really is. You can't blame her. She doesn't know what she's doing, but she knows he's been hurt. You should have seen the way he touched her, when he thought she was sleeping. It's my fault for not protecting her then. It's my fault for bringing him here in the first place.

But she can't go near the others. Not till she's snapped out of whatever fugue she's in.

We'll get out of here, Lisa, you and me. We can do it.

II.

As he orders me to my knees on the worst day of my life, my body responds to the comfortable familiarity of the position. Even more so when he reaches in and pulls on my hair. My body remembers all the secrets I've been keeping. Jack's thinking of secrets too. "What else are you keeping from us," he snarls. I can smell his breath.

And that's when I lose it. Like a dam bursting, all the grief and the loneliness and the resentment that I haven't even noticed I've been feeling, gushing out of my stupid mouth before i can put the brakes on. You never asked. You never even once asked.

As I hear myself, I'm panicking. NEVER a good idea to mouth off to the man holding you at gunpoint. But then again, I don't have very much more left to lose, so why not. If these are my last words, let them be true.

And the strangest thing, as my tirade pours forth: I feel his demeanor change. Have I struck a nerve?

"Haven't you ever loved anyone, Jack?" I ask him, and then I see his expression. And I realize just who he thinks I'm talking about. Oh no.

But he's putting up his pistol. He's letting me up now. One step closer to reaching Lisa, talking her out of this. I know she's in there. We can be like we were before.

It's all I've wanted, so badly for so long.

If I can just get her to remember…

III.

Was I in the pool? I remember speaking with Lisa, begging her, and then…

I awaken to his lips. Then, his eyes. Then, his big American hand, shushing me. No discussion necessary. Like always. Got it. But… his lips.

They feel like life.

IV.

Did I say already that this was the worst day of my life? I had no idea. He used MY pterodactyl. And then he handed me a gun and told me to finish the job.

And I find myself unable. Even behind this white woman's face. Even with what I can see that she's done. Even when she starts in again about the upgrade. God, I can't I can't

and my worthless hide is saved, it seems, by everybody, but first and especially by him. I can't help but scan their faces as they murder my girlfriend. Gwen looks sad about it, poor dear. Tosh looks stern but determined. Owen looks like a right _sach blewog_.

But he. He looks like a man who's died twice today. Brutal. I suddenly realize I'm looking to him for comfort in this moment. Some flicker of a microexpression that hints of the care he's shown me at…. those times. Please show me that you remember. Kill me next, but please show me I didn't make this up.

His face is impassive. I die.

And then I turn to Lisa, what she left behind, and I die again.


	4. Chapter 4

"Finished?" he asks from the doorway. Like it never happened.

I look up from the trash. "Just about." Wrapping the plastic tie around the bag.

"You know, there's a lot of things you can do with zip ties," he offers.

I stop short. Some vestige must remain of last night's crazy truth spiel, because I hear myself asking, "Do you think I deserve to be punished?"

His response seems to be first surprise, then his usual joking hunger. "Do you *want* to be punished?"

What can I possibly..? "If I did, it would hardly be punishment, now would it?"

"Good point" is Jack's too-immediate response. His gaze is fixed in the middle distance, and I get the strong feeling that he's remembering someone specific. His life has been so long. There is so much he'll never tell. But for the first time since finding Dr. Tanizaki's body, maybe for the first time since Canary Wharf, I begin to feel like I can see past the limits of the very next second. I take a deep breath.

"I… I've been having a rough go of it lately."

"I'll say," he murmurs, looking at me from under his hair. Unfair. I soldier on.

"And I think I'll do best if I can take… a step back."

He manages to suppress any verbal response, but his face is saying, "What, you're just going to leave?" He must know that he flirts as a form of control. Mustn't he?

"Not far, and not permanently. Just… to fade into the background for a little while. Just make the coffee." (I think again of poor Dr. Tanizaki.) "Clean out the rest of the subbasements." I look at Jack's shoulder. "Turn down any… extra duties."

Now this, he cannot suppress. "I hope you don't think that I EXPECT—" he begins to bluster.

And now here's my own too-quick response. "Of course not." And now I look him in the eyes. Oh, Jesus. Am I really doing this? "This company is all I've got left. I'm going to be looking for… extra duties. In the near-ish future. I'd like to… grow with the company. I just think it's best for… all of us… at the moment, if I… take a little space."

I swallow. I wonder if I look as nervous as I feel. "With your permission, sir."

If he wasn't half-panting before this, that last line clinched it. His eyes are a bit glassy as he says—all business, plausibly deniable, if anyone were to overhear, which they won't—"I trust your judgement."

And here I am standing, bin liner in hand, not sure where to put my face. Of all the words I thought he might say, I never expected to hear those. Ever again. Lacking a better response, I set the bag down.

And suddenly, his hand is on my arm. And despite myself, I meet his gaze. Our eyes are almost level (though his arm could fit two of mine).

"Until you're ready," he says. And he leans forward. And I feel my heart reaching out to meet him.

His lips are like life.


End file.
